Call for political displays rankles some Mormons

Associated Press/June 28, 2008

By Jennifer Dobner

Salt Lake City - Lester Leavitt has made a request of his family:
oppose their church's opposition to gay marriage.

Leavitt, from Pompano Beach, Fla., is asking his siblings and children
on the West Coast to choose family over a call from Mormon church
leaders to support a November ballot initiative to define traditional
marriage California's constitution.

A letter from Thomas S. Monson, president of The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints, was to be read from the pulpit in church
congregations Sunday.

Since the letter began circulating on the Web last weekend, hundreds
of Mormon blog posts have expressed disbelief, disappointment and
outrage at the church's decision to wade into politics.

A lifelong Mormon who came out as a gay man in 2004, Leavitt wants his
California relatives to walk out when Monson's letter is read.

"I thought by asking my family to do this, I was simply asking them to
send a strong message to Salt Lake City that they disagree with the
idea that any church has the right to entrench clearly religious dogma
into the constitution of a state or country," he wrote in a letter
posted on an Internet discussion group called q-saints. "I was just
asking them to defend my civil rights."

Leavitt has worked as an activist on behalf of gay Mormons and has
weathered an excommunication attempt. He said Monson's letter was a
disappointing last straw and sent a certified letter to the church's
Salt Lake City headquarters asking to have his name removed from the
rolls.

"I wanted to remain a cultural Mormon," Leavitt, 44, said Thursday. "I
thought there was a way, an opening up, but then all of a sudden, the
church decides this ... and I'm not going to wait around."

Officially, the Mormon church teaches that homosexual sex is a sin,
although celibate gays can remain active in church callings and
activities. Since the 1990s the church has been politically active in
defeating same-sex marriage initiatives nationwide, including asking
its members to vigorously help pass California's Proposition 22 in
2000, which prohibited California from legally recognizing gay
marriages performed outside the state.

But over the past five years the church had appeared to undergo a
subtle shift in position.

Leaders have been more silent and limited the church's activism to
filing legal briefs and a signature on a 2006 letter to congress
supporting a federal marriage amendment.

In addition, the rhetoric around what the church calls same-gender
attraction had softened, and Latter-day Saints have been encouraged to
encircle gay members with love and compassion.

Even a short statement of disappointment after last month's
California's Supreme Court decision to legalize gay marriage was mild.

"Maybe I was just optimistic. I thought they might sit on the
sidelines and not have any bad press," said Matt Thurston, a
39-year-old Mormon from Corona, Calif., who is not gay.

Although Monson's letter states that the faith's "unequivocal" moral
position that marriage between a man and a woman is an institution
ordained by God seems to indicate no change of heart by leaders, many
wonder whether the general membership will rally to political
participation with the same fervor as in 2000.

"There is that culture of obedience that once the proclamation has
been raised, that's it," said Jeffrey Nielsen, a professor of
philosophy who was ousted from the church-owned Brigham Young
University in Provo, Utah, in 2006 after criticizing the church's
position on gay marriage in a newspaper column.

At the same time, Mormonism preaches that God blesses each person with
the agency to make his or her own decisions, and some may not
surrender that freedom so easily, Nielsen said.

In a letter to his fellow Mormons submitted to several California
newspapers, Nielsen wrote:

"A growing number of active Mormons, who have gay friends and family
members are coming to the conclusion that our current leaders are as
mistaken in promoting discrimination against gays and lesbians as was
the Mormon hierarchy in the 60's when they opposed equal rights for
people of color, and our Mormon leaders in the 70's when they opposed
full legal equality for women.

"No one is asking that you condone a behavior that might violate your
religious faith, but we need to allow everyone the freedom to live
their life as they see fit."

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